Weekend TV : Classic American and Foreign Films May Take Your Mind Off Sizzling Heat

If your air conditioner is working, the best way to beat the heat this weekend might be to stay home and watch movies on TV.

KCET Channel 28 has two Luis Bunuel classics on tap tonight. His 1977 film about the politics of sex and obsession, “That Obscure Object of Desire,” airs at 9 p.m., and his 1951 surrealistic classic “Mexican Bus Ride” follows at 10:40 p.m. The movies will be presented in French and Spanish respectively, with English subtitles.

For those with more mainstream tastes, CBS will screen “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” starring Chevy Chase, at 9 p.m. (2)(8).

The gritty realism of American cinema in 1970 will also be represented tonight as Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson star in “Easy Rider” at 10 p.m. on KCOP Channel 13, while Dustin Hoffman pops up as “Little Big Man” at midnight on KTTV Channel 11.

Sunday, Vincente Minnelli’s film of the Lerner & Loewe musical “Gigi” comes to the small screen at 8 p.m. on Channel 13.

Marlee Matlin and Lee Remick will also be on hand in the made-for-TV movie “Bridge to Silence,” at 9 p.m. (2)(8). NBC counters with Raymond Burr and Debbie Reynolds in yet another “Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder,” 9 p.m. (4)(36)(39), while ABC serves up Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in the 1984 swashbuckling adventure “Romancing the Stone,” 9 p.m. (7)(3)(10)(42).